Millennial Motherhood

For New Moms, It's Instagram to the Rescue!

Destry and her family
While I am often a diehard opponent (or challenger) of social media and smartphones, I recognize that these digital devices and online networks can be essential lifelines for certain segments of the population. This week, I spoke to my good friend, Destry Sibley, a podcast producer and new mother, about how becoming a mom has changed her relationship to social media and her smartphone.
In Destry’s various friend groups, she was the first to have a baby. This means that she doesn’t have a lot of people to use as point of references for asking questions about all things baby related. As a result, Destry has found an immensely helpful community online. “Instagram has become a lifeline for me,” she says about the social network, which she now mainly uses to follow various parenting accounts. From sleep training her baby to introducing solid foods, Instagram has been a guiding light as she navigates this new world of motherhood. Some of the accounts she follows are by mothers like her; others are by parenting experts and professionals. All of them are helpful resources that she’s grateful to have. “Following these Instagram accounts makes me feel more confident,” she says.
But Destry doesn’t only use her phone for educational purposes. It’s also become an important connection to the outside world. New mothers can often feel isolated from their communities, especially during maternity leave, and being in communication with friends through group chats and social media became an important way for Destry to maintain her sanity during long days alone at home. Now that her daughter is six months old and a bit more independent, Destry might turn to her phone to get a mental break while keeping an eye on her daughter as she explores a new book or toy on the floor. But overall, she has also found that she checks her email way less now and will often put on an auto away message so that she can spend uninterrupted time with her baby.
“One of the gifts of being a parent is the gift of sustained attention,” she says. “Everything with a baby slows down – the world becomes small and focused.” Destry has found that, since having the baby, it’s easier to put down her phone for long stretches of time. “It’s forced me to be present in a way that I wasn’t before, which is a gift.”
Still, Destry is also conscious about the judgement she gets as a mother in the world, especially if she’s doing something like looking at her smartphone while at the park with her daughter. “It’s part of being a mom,” Destry says. “You can’t ever win.”

It’s true; I’m guilty of passing judgement on parents who are on their phones, but the truth is—I have no idea what they’re doing. They might be mindlessly scrolling through Facebook, which might be a much-needed mental break after hours of intense parenting duties. Or they might be communicating with a spouse about schedules, or checking the weather to see if rain is on the way. For example, one of the main reasons Destry looks at her phone is to track her daughter’s sleep cycles and wake windows in an app. “It would be nice if it could be analog,” she says, but the app tracking system worked to get her daughter sleeping through the night at 10 weeks old.
Unlike me, Destry doesn’t believe that phones are getting in the way of good parenting. “This is new,” she says, “the cultural pressure to give attention to your children all the time [helicopter parenting]. A lot of research suggests that expectations to spend time with kids is way more now than it was in the 80’s.” In Destry’s view, it’s obviously important to ensure a safe environment for your child, but it’s just as important for your child to explore and problem solve on their own. I couldn’t agree more.

Multi-tasking
That being said, Destry is conscious about the unknown effects of screen exposure on developing brains. “It’s not how brains are supposed to develop,” she says, and she doesn’t feel inclined to expose her daughter to screens anytime soon. “We don’t FaceTime or take selfies with her.” Destry wants her daughter to have a healthy relationship to screens and technology, and she recognizes that it’s less about rules and more about what is modeled by the parents. “If she sees us engaging with other things like reading and drawing, she’ll learn that there’s an alternative to being on a device.” She’s resistant to handing over the phone as the default, she also wants to let her child regulate herself. “It’s all about balance.”
Destry makes the very interesting point that we millennials weren’t taught how to have a healthy relationship with these kinds of devices, like we might have learned with television. “This is a very new parenting challenge for our generation,” she says, “and we’ll figure it out as we go.”
Millennial Aunties Cooing Over Baby
Tip of the Week
I think a lot about how to have control over my smartphone versus the other way around. For me, it's all about making little rules for myself - no checking email on the phone. Don't check phone until after I've watered the plants.
Another rule that I'd like to adopt involves smartphone usage in the car. I often find myself checking my WhatsApp messages while at a red light -- dangerous. As my husband says, I'm still engaged in traffic, even if I'm stopped. But I've developed another nasty habit of being on my device as a passenger in the car. Although it's not as dangerous, it's simply unpleasant for my partner who's driving - and wholly unnecessary. It can wait.
Digital Life Around the Web
Millennial mother Sarah Menkedick writes about motherhood and social media: "My Instagram is in some ways a struggle to bring motherhood into the (filtered, very carefully curated) light, to acknowledge it as a subject worthy of attention."
If you’re using a period-tracking app, there’s a decent chance Facebook knows all about your sex life.
“The calories just aren’t worth it if it’s not going to make a good Instagram photo." How #foodporn reinforces disordered eating habits.
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